


it's good to know where your journey ends

by gpu



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-19 10:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7357564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gpu/pseuds/gpu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Junkrat learns how to tolerate the Russian winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's good to know where your journey ends

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqaCzsCSn90). straya fuck yeah
> 
> My headcanon is that by 2060, bomberman will be added to super smash bros. ;_;

There weren’t many things Junkrat missed about his scorched, irradiated shithole of a home country. Sure, he’d enjoyed the thrill of being on the run, blowing up omnics and cops alike with Roadhog, but that pleasure was nothing that couldn’t be replicated on the battlefield now that he was working with Overwatch. Besides, he still had Roadhog with him; the big lug would follow him to the ends of the earth if he was paid to.

The thing that Junkrat missed the most was the heat. None of the locations the team fought at could compare to the outback; there was nothing like having the harsh Australian sun beat down on his back while cruising down a rugged road, watching the sky bleed in with the arid horizon that stretched out, limitless. He missed fiddling with Roadhog’s transmitter, savouring whichever crackling pop song Triple J was playing. Hell, he missed having to slap mozzies away from his bare shoulders, unable to fall asleep because of the oppressive heat seeping through the windows of whichever decrepit roadside motel they’d crashed at, payment optional.

This sense of nostalgia surfaced most strongly whenever they were stationed somewhere bleak and snowy, like where they are today: Volskaya Industries.

“Fuck me, I’m freezing my arse off here,” mutters Junkrat, wrapping his arms around his shivering frame. He’s got a fluffy scarf wound around his neck, courtesy of Reinhardt, who apparently knits for a hobby. It does little to alleviate the stinging chill of the spawn room, though, mainly because the scarf and a plain white singlet are the only garments Junkrat has on in addition to his usual attire.

“That’s yer own fault,” Roadhog grunts from beside him, still clad in his normal outfit. Much to Junkrat’s annoyance, his bodyguard hasn’t shown any hint that he’s affected by the temperature.

“Nah, it’s the fault of the fuckwit who’s forcing us to fight in this weather. I mean, what kind of backwards country has winter in the middle of fuckin’ January?”

“Better not let Zarya hear that,” Pharah pipes up, gesturing towards the Russian woman who's some distance behind them, fixated on a painting on the wall. “This _is_ her home country, you know.”

Next to her, Mercy tuts. “Really, Jamie, you ought to put something else on. Anyone would think that you’re deliberately trying to contract hypothermia.”

Normally, he hates being called by any variation on his first name, but it just sounds natural coming from Mercy. Maybe it’s because she’s like a stand-in mother figure for the younger members of Overwatch.

“I’ll be right, mate,” Junkrat says, but he knows that any hint of confidence he has is betrayed by his chattering teeth.

Soldier: 76 shrugs off his jacket with a sigh, handing it to the younger man. “You’re best off taking this, son. You look like you need it more than I do.”

“Oh bugger off, I don’t need your charity,” says Junkrat, jogging a little on the spot. With some regret, he watches 76 slip the jacket back on, probably while rolling his eyes behind his mask.

“Don’t worry, Soldier. You know how kids are,” Mercy says with a glint in her eyes, as if she’s keeping a secret from the rest of them.

Junkrat just wants the match to start already. He knows that once he’s blowing things up out there, the weather won’t even register in his mind, instead becoming an irrelevant detail overshadowed by the adrenaline pumping through him.

Athena’s voice echoes over the spawn room, counting down from five. Junkrat already has his thumb lingering over the trigger of his frag launcher, itching to explode some grenades in the enemy team’s faces. He’s out before the door has fully opened, crunching through snow and barely noticing the icy wind tickling his exposed arms. One of his concussion mines takes out an enemy McCree at the choke point, felling him with a thud.

“Ha! How d’ya like that, seppo cunt!”

He doesn’t usually vocalise such insults, but the bitter cold has left him feeling particularly vindictive.

Mayhem is erupting all around him. Pharah's boosted up into the air, launching rockets that explode upon impacting the ground, sending finely powdered snow flying. Not far behind her hovers Mercy, a faint, flickering blue stream of energy connecting the two of them. Zarya has both herself and Soldier: 76 encased in a protective bubble, shrugging off any damage the other team fires their way. He can’t see Roadhog anywhere; looks like he’s the first to reach the capture point.

Junkrat stands in the designated square for all of five seconds before a hostile Reinhardt barrels into him, charging them both into the freezing river that encircles the battleground.

\--

When Junkrat comes to, he finds himself in a brightly lit room clutching several hot water bottles, not submerged in frigid water like he’d expected. He flails in alarm anyway, before realising his movement is restricted by the stifling blankets he’s bundled in.

“Oh Jamie, you’re awake,” he hears Mercy say, voice marked with relief.

“Where am I,” he mumbles, resenting how slurred and meek his speech sounds. “What happened?”

“The infirmary at Overwatch’s St. Petersburg base,” says Soldier: 76, slouched against the counter. “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss too much. We just got back from the mission.”

Junkrat sits up. “The mission! Did we—”

“We won,” Roadhog says shortly, settled on a plastic chair next to the examination table Junkrat is lying on. “You were out for pretty much all of it.”

“And you didn’t wake me?”

“He was at your side for most of the mission.” Mercy says, and Junkrat would have been touched by this detail if he wasn’t so busy shivering even while wrapped up, the heater next to him cranked up to its highest setting. “When it was over and you were still unconscious, we suspected something was wrong.”

“Didn’t even have time for a debriefing,” 76 cuts in. “Really. Back in my day, something as trivial as the weather was no deterrent for us.”

“But you weren’t falling into frozen rivers, wearing only a singlet and shorts,” says Pharah, helmet still tucked under her arm.

The soldier just shakes his head and grumbles something under his breath, something that sounds suspiciously like “kids these days”. Zarya chooses this moment to walk in, carrying a glass of tinted yellow liquid.

“I have something for you,” she says, handing it to Junkrat. “Is traditional Russian remedy.”

“Just a moment,” says Mercy, intercepting the exchange. “Zarya, with all due respect… Are you giving him vodka?”

“Vodka with honey! Mama made it whenever I had a flu.”

“No no, he’s suffering from hypothermia, not the flu; alcohol will only lower his body temperature. Thank you for the kind gesture though, I’m sure Jamie appreciates it.” Mercy places a hand on Junkrat’s shoulder, indicating that he should say something.

“Oh. Yeah, thanks mate,” says Junkrat, fidgeting awkwardly beneath the covers. He doesn’t have a clear idea on what hypothermia is, though he knows it’s dragging him through hell right now. They arrived at Russia two days ago, and already it feels like he’s been shuddering from the biting cold for months.

Zarya just nods and tells Junkrat to recover fast, like it’s the next objective of a mission.

“What’s all this, then?”

Everyone turns to the doorway, where another group of Overwatch members have huddled. Tracer, who just asked the question, takes a step into the sick bay.

“We heard you were back from the fight,” adds D.Va.

“Too many people,” Mercy declares, shooing the peanut gallery out. “Everyone, let’s allow Jamie to get some rest.”

“What, no—”

Mercy shuts the door before he can protest, and Junkrat slumps back onto his pillow. “Fuck’s sake, when can I get up?”

Roadhog’s the only one left in the room, and he gives a half-hearted shrug. “In a few hours. Don’t be such a sook.” He tacks on the last bit when he notices Junkrat’s snide expression.

“Whatever, you can piss off now. I don’t need you to watch me all the time.”

Junkrat pulls the covers over his head, drowning out the rest of the world. By the time he remembers to peek out, Roadhog is no longer at his side.

\--

“Hey man, you feelin’ better?” Lúcio asks when he spots Junkrat padding into the common room, wooden leg tapping bluntly against the lino floor.

“‘Course I am! Hypothermia’s never stopped me before,” says Junkrat, blankets still drawn loosely around his wiry frame. Not that he’d ever experienced it before, but the others didn’t know that.

“Takes a lickin’, keeps on tickin’, am I right?” Tracer giggles at her own mock-Australian accent.

“Wanna join us, Junkrat? We’re playing Smash,” says D.Va, crawling towards the TV cabinet to retrieve a fourth controller.

Junkrat doesn’t have anything better to do, so he sits himself in front of the telly. After a second, he changes his mind, relocating to the warmer surface of the couch.

“It’s so fuckin’ cold, I can feel it in both me legs,” he says, knocking his peg leg for emphasis, and this earns a chuckle from the rest of them. A new match is starting, and his eyes gloss over the character roster, daunted by the many choices. He never got the chance to play video games while he was on the run.

Lúcio turns around from his spot on the floor to help Junkrat navigate the controller. “Here, you should choose this one,” he says, and with a press of a button, a deep voice is announcing the character’s name: Bomberman.

“Ooh, I like him already,” says Junkrat. He’s got no plan going into the game, but then again, it’s like that for real life battles, and things have always worked out for him. Frantically mashing at buttons seems to be the way to go, because he somehow knocks D.Va’s character off the stage. Junkrat relishes the screams blaring from the telly, ignoring D.Va’s complaints that she’s going easy on him.

“Normally I don’t even touch Nintendo games,” she huffs, to the amusement of both Lúcio and Tracer. Junkrat starts to cackle, until he feels the beginning of a sneeze tickling the insides of his nostrils. Before he knows it, he’s spraying snot and spit all over the controller.

“Bless you,” says Tracer. “And, er. You might want to wipe that up.”

“Thanks, pom.” Junkrat sniffs, swiping at the controller with the corner of a blanket. D.Va pauses the game to fetch him a sick mask.

“I always keep a spare one with me,” she says, pressing it insistently into Junkrat’s hand.

The mask has a cartoon pig printed on it, which obviously reminds him of Roadhog. He feels sort of bad for yelling at the big guy earlier, but really, they’d always been abrasive to each other. He wouldn’t have taken those words to heart. No way.

He can’t really focus on the game anymore, so he starts babbling about the first thing that comes to mind, anything to distract himself from the useless guilt.

“What’s the deal with that doc,” Junkrat gripes, tossing the game controller to the side. “I mean, she can bring us back from the dead, but she can’t heal a fuckin’ cold?”

“Same reason why we sometimes fight copies of ourselves on missions, I suppose. Don’t think too hard about it, love,” says Tracer, not looking up from the screen.

Junkrat wonders if he should feel unsettled by this, but he shrugs it off, too bothered by the chill to dwell on anything else. More than anything, he just wants to kick back, crack open a coldie and bask in the sweltering midday sun. He starts when he notices movement next to him, a familiar rasping voice cutting into his fantasy. It's Roadhog, carrying a Blinky Bill mug the two of them found ages ago, when they were raiding a run-down Woolies. Junkrat picked it up because it was a rarity to see any homeware made of glass or ceramic that wasn’t smashed to bits.

“Finally found you,” says Roadhog. “Made you milk tea. I know you like it with pearls.”

Junkrat could kiss Roadhog right about now. Instead, he says, “Paint me red and call me the salvos, 'cause you’ve got me feelin’ like a charity case here.”

“Yeah, well. Yer welcome.” Roadhog ambles up to the couch and squeezes into the remaining space, ignoring Tracer’s whinging. Junkrat hops onto his lap, blankets and all, soaking up the larger man’s body heat.

Maybe it’s the sweet milk tea settling in his stomach that’s got him so subdued, or it’s maybe the warmth he can feel radiating from Roadhog, concentrated especially at the small of Junkrat’s back where the blankets have ridden up. “Love ya, Hog,” he mumbles, not really thinking. “And, um. Sorry ’bout before, I was all grumpy ‘cuz of the cold and—”

“Shut it,” Roadhog grunts. Then, under his breath, soft enough so that the others won’t hear, he says, “Love you too,” and Junkrat grins like he’s just won a lifetime supply of explosives.

Really, he still hates the cold, even preferring the severe sunlight of that dumping ground in Numbani over the Russian winter. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t getting used to this: settled snug as a puzzle piece against his partner’s chest, sipping at his specially-made milk tea.


End file.
